Name That Trauma :: Reader Moises C. on a Bow-Legged, Killer Beast

Hello there! I just discovered your site today while spending a good deal of time trying to identify a movie that I only remember a few parts of, and it seriously spooked me at the time!

I hoped maybe someone would be able to help me pin a name to it. It may have been a made-for-television movie along the lines of DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, but I’m really not sure. It would have been on either Superhost or one of the other mid-day movie shows in the early eighties. The movie MAY have been about monsters or aliens that were monsters. I thought there were three of them and they all had different attributes, though I recall that one of them was dark and hairy, possibly with those backward-kneed, bandy legs a satyr might have.

At one point there is a scene where a man hears noises in his basement and goes to investigate. He flips on the light and this hairy thing is standing right there and proceeds to kill him! (This, I don’t mind telling you, still crosses my mind whenever I go to flip on the light in my parents basement!!!)

Really creepy.

Then there is another scene where a man is standing outside in the snow and there is a shot of these hairy monster legs and feet walking up behind him and crunching the snow. This creature is killed I think, but not before strangling the man. And I’m afraid that’s all I remember. As I said these monsters may have been aliens.

WHAT IS THIS MOVIE??!!! It’s driving me NUTS!!!

I appreciate any help anyone can give me on this one.

Many thanks!

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Huge thanks to Reader ElderMarsh for getting a leg up on THE ALIEN FACTOR!

It sounds like a cult favorite by director Don Dohler , The Alien Factor. The aspects of snow and the various alien monsters synch up. I don’t remember a basement scene, though. Here’s the internet movie database link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075656/
The movie is soon to be riffed apart by the guys and gal from Mystery Science Theater as part of their continuing Cinematic Titanic series. Joel has written an amusing summary of the movie: http://www.cinematictitanic.com/showguide.php